problem of other minds
In plain wordsThe puzzle of how we can know that anyone besides ourselves has thoughts and feelings, since we only ever see their behavior. AI turns this old puzzle into a practical one.
The epistemological problem of justifying the belief that beings other than oneself have minds, given that one has direct access only to one's own experiences and can observe only others' bodies and behavior. Classic responses include the argument from analogy (others resemble me and behave as I do when I am in pain, so they probably feel pain too), inference to the best explanation, and views on which minds are directly perceived in expressive behavior. AI strains each answer: language models produce humanlike testimony and conduct through very different mechanisms, weakening the analogy, while their internals can be inspected in ways other people's cannot. The Turing testTuring test, n.: Alan Turing's proposed test of machine intelligence: a judge holds typed conversations with a hidden person and a hidden computer, and the computer passes if the judge cannot consistently pick it out. was Alan Turing's pragmatic answer, and the philosophical zombiephilosophical zombie, n.: An imagined being that behaves exactly like a person — talking, laughing, even saying it feels pain — but has no inner experience at all. Philosophers use it to ask whether behavior proves a mind. dramatizes the problem.
With chatbots, the problem of other minds stopped being a seminar puzzle and became a design question.
Origin
The argument from analogy was set out by John Stuart Mill in An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865). The problem became a standard topic of 20th-century analytic philosophy, discussed by J. L. Austin in 'Other Minds' (1946) and by Ludwig Wittgenstein; Alan Turing's 1950 paper addressed it directly.
Usage note
Distinct from theory of mindtheory of mind, n.: Being able to work out what someone else believes, wants or knows — even when it is not what you believe — and to use that to guess what they will do next. Researchers test whether AI has it., the psychological capacity to attribute mental states to others; the problem of other minds asks whether such attributions are justified at all.
Related
- Turing testTuring test, n.: Alan Turing's proposed test of machine intelligence: a judge holds typed conversations with a hidden person and a hidden computer, and the computer passes if the judge cannot consistently pick it out.
- philosophical zombiephilosophical zombie, n.: An imagined being that behaves exactly like a person — talking, laughing, even saying it feels pain — but has no inner experience at all. Philosophers use it to ask whether behavior proves a mind.
- anthropomorphismanthropomorphism, n.: Treating something that isn't human — a pet, a car, a chatbot — as if it had human thoughts, feelings or intentions. AI that talks fluently makes this temptation unusually strong.
- consciousnessconsciousness, n.: Having experiences: there being something it feels like to be you, as when you see red or feel pain. Whether any AI is or could become conscious is an open and fiercely debated question.
- machine consciousnessmachine consciousness, n.: Whether a machine such as an AI system could have genuine experiences of its own — and the research field that tries to find out, or to build such a machine.
- intentional stanceintentional stance, n.: Predicting what something will do by treating it as if it had beliefs and goals — as we do with people, and often with chess programs and chatbots — whatever is really going on inside.
- theory of mindtheory of mind, n.: Being able to work out what someone else believes, wants or knows — even when it is not what you believe — and to use that to guess what they will do next. Researchers test whether AI has it.
Sources
- Mill, J. S. (1865). An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. Longmans.
- Austin, J. L. (1946). Other Minds. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 20, 148–187.
Mentioned in
consciousnessconsciousness, n.: Having experiences: there being something it feels like to be you, as when you see red or feel pain. Whether any AI is or could become conscious is an open and fiercely debated question., intentional stanceintentional stance, n.: Predicting what something will do by treating it as if it had beliefs and goals — as we do with people, and often with chess programs and chatbots — whatever is really going on inside., philosophical zombiephilosophical zombie, n.: An imagined being that behaves exactly like a person — talking, laughing, even saying it feels pain — but has no inner experience at all. Philosophers use it to ask whether behavior proves a mind., theory of mindtheory of mind, n.: Being able to work out what someone else believes, wants or knows — even when it is not what you believe — and to use that to guess what they will do next. Researchers test whether AI has it., BlockheadBlockhead, n.: An imagined machine that passes any conversation test by looking up prewritten replies in an unimaginably huge table. Most people judge it unintelligent, which suggests that behavior alone does not prove intelligence., folk psychologyfolk psychology, n.: The everyday way people explain and predict each other's actions in terms of beliefs, desires and intentions, as in 'she took an umbrella because she thought it would rain'., Thomas NagelThomas Nagel, prop. n.: An American philosopher whose 1974 essay 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' defined consciousness as there being something it is like to be a creature, a test now applied to machines.